


Spooked by the Sky

by houseofthestars



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Fluff and Humor, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Black Eagles Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Ultra Rarepair Big Bang (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), background edelthea, established couple into poly triad, hubert faces the mortifying ordeal of maybe relaxing for once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:33:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26210431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houseofthestars/pseuds/houseofthestars
Summary: In Enbarr, Hubert has been overworking and overheating. Sent to Arianrhod - or at least to the site of its rebuilding, its reshaping to serve the people of Faerghus - he finds himself out of his usual discomfort zone and within the orbit of the worst liars in Fódlan.
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert, Caspar von Bergliez/Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 14
Kudos: 43
Collections: 2020 Ultra Rarepair Big Bang





	Spooked by the Sky

_Report #5.7, 1188 on the Arianrhod Project, delivered to the Imperial palace with the von Bergliez family seal on the envelope and with a jam stain in one corner:_

_Hubert,_

_Buying of building stuff for stage one complete though I gotta move a key meeting with a supplier as I’m going to two different weddings on the original planned date (not my own. Long story). Rubble cleared from stage one building site and we are trying to sort through what we can reuse, what we can give to the local villagers and what needs throwing away. Hector from the building crew says they can begin the next phase by the turn of Garland moon - which means we are still on time even after we got held up moving that family of swans I told you about._

_I put a more detailed day-by-day thing and the latest spending report for the project in this envelope too, along with a current site map and a schedule for the next moon. Sorry about all the money. If Ferdinand complains about it tell him to come here and say it to my face._

_Tell Edelgard I said hi!!_

_Cas_

—

Summer in Enbarr has always been smothering and oppressive, a warm dusty rug laid over the streets that leaves Hubert unable to breathe or think. He’s in his shirtsleeves, rolled up to the elbow, the windows wide to accommodate whatever pitiful breeze happens to drift into the cluttered office, but all of it is meagre relief when the air itself is hot soup. Baking hot days bleed into nights tossing and turning under a thin sheet, exhausting and unpleasant. But Enbarr is where Hubert is needed, and so Enbarr is where he will be, even if one day they might have to scrape him off these damnable velvet chairs.

He’s still trying to focus on decoding the latest missive from his plant in the Dagdan parliament when a gentle tapping jerks him from his reverie, and he doesn’t even have time to refasten his collar before Edelgard’s head ducks around the door.

“Hubert,” she chides. “This is supposed to be your free day.”

Hubert rises to his feet faster than Edelgard can usher him back down, bowing low even as he feels sweat sticking his shirt to his lower back. “Your Majesty. If you had need of me, you only had to send word and I would have come to you.”

Edelgard sighs and tucks a strand of her hair, wispy in the damp air, back behind her ear. “Why are you still here?”

“Oh, so it’s the opposite? Have I become superfluous so quickly? Surely if my work as Minister is no longer required I might provide some other service. Garden gnome, perhaps. Or bookshelf.”

“With those noodle arms? Don’t flatter yourself, Hubert.” She’s smiling her teasing smile as she gestures for him to sit again, though. It’s a smile that’s more often on her lips these days — the fault of which may be laid squarely at Dorothea’s door, Hubert suspects, though he could never, ever begrudge her for it. Not after so many years with Edelgard’s face set only with grim determination. “You know full well what I mean, anyway. I designated these free days between you and Ferdinand for a reason.”

“I merely had a few items that could not wait until tomorrow, my lady.”

“Mm, that’s what you say every time.” She settles herself into the chair across the desk from him, fanning herself idly with a hand. Hubert pours her a glass of water from the pitcher on his desk, though it’s on its way to tepid at this hour of the day. “I came here looking for the most recent documents regarding the new Arianrhod project, to share with Petra.”

“The expense report is already on von Aegir’s desk, Your Majesty, but…” Hubert reaches for the most recent missive, scans his eyes over it. Ah. “...it may be more prudent that I deliver you a transcribed copy of the building reports. It would only take me an hour or so.”

“An hour? Why would I need a transcribed version? If you fear it’s too technical, I can sift through jargon, Hubert. Don’t let’s waste both your time and my own.”

“Jargon is not the issue, my lady,” Hubert says. He shrugs, seeing little point in arguing further, and hands over the report. Edelgard takes it in both hands, shaking the pages once with a jerk to straighten them.

She only makes it halfway down the page before she starts to laugh. “Is this Caspar? I don’t remember any of his other reports being like this.”

Hubert clears his throat. “That is because I take the liberty of paraphrasing for you in our face-to-face meetings, my lady. Your time is precious so I tend to omit the, ah, flavour text surrounding the key facts.”

Edelgard only laughs harder at this. “How many other reports have featured the family of swans?”

Hubert can’t stop the corners of his mouth from twitching upwards, just a little. “There have been three to date.”

“My word. I understand why you choose to paraphrase but honestly I’m a little disappointed I haven’t heard the whole saga.” She looks over the top of the report at Hubert, still smiling. “It’s a credit to you and Ferdinand that the project carries on apace.”

“If I may, my lady,” Hubert interjects quickly. “It is rather a credit to von Bergliez and his right hand fellow. Caspar’s missives to the Palace may be... colourful, but he is still working hard. I did not recommend him for the role of leading this reconstruction project frivolously.”

Though when he did so, the only face more surprised than Edelgard’s or Ferdinand’s had been Caspar’s own. Hubert remembers the way Caspar had looked at him, brows furrowed, trying to spot the punchline before he ran into it headfirst. Hubert had matched the stare, impassive, until Caspar had accepted the role with the same kind of chin-lifted defiance that he usually put into challenges to spar. Perhaps he had seen it the same way.

“Of course,” Edelgard agrees. “Well, I still refuse to take up more of your free time. I can have one of the scribes take my paraphrased dictation for Petra, while you get yourself out of this horrible stuffy office.”

“Being here does not trouble me,” Hubert says, and Edelgard sighs.

“I know it doesn’t, that’s the exact problem. Don’t make me have to order you to take a break, Hubert. If I’m honest, I’m a little worried about you.”

“My lady?”

Edelgard begins to fan herself with the report, looking past Hubert’s ear as if choosing her words carefully. “We worked so hard for this freedom, you and I, and I will always be grateful for your service. I just... hope that in that service, you do not miss the opportunity to take stock of what we have achieved. Experience that freedom.”

“I experience and relish our achievement every day, as I work to ensure that its legacy endures, Your Majesty. But if you really that concerned, rest assured I only intended to be in the office briefly. I will be on my way soon.” The last sentence is spoken in the tone he often uses to promise Bernadetta on his visits to Varley that nobody in the cabinet was angry at her for not replying to their letters yet and no, she will not be assassinated for the slight.

Edelgard fixes him with a look that he meets with a practiced absence of reaction until she rolls her eyes, much like she often did at the age of fourteen. She stands from the desk. 

“I choose to trust that you would not lie to your Emperor, Hubert, as I always have. Take a walk. Take in the city air. The hydrangea are in bloom in the Canal Gardens, I’m told.”

Hubert does not care about flowers and the thought of walking to the canal in this heat might be the thing that finally leads him to expire, right here in this chair. His lady knows this, he is sure, but Edelgard does not give quarter, merely bops him gently on the forearm with the report and fondly says, “And if you cannot contemplate the beauty of hydrangea I hope that you might at least contemplate the dignity of delegation. I hope not to see you again today.”

“I will be as but a whisper on the wind, Your Majesty.”

“I mean it. Go and whisper somewhere else.”

Edelgard is only a few steps from the door, her mouth turned upward faintly at the corners, when she pauses and pivots. “Actually, there might be one more thing before I go.”

Hubert straightens. “My lady?”

“Do you have the original versions of our previous reports from Caspar to hand? I find myself still curious as to the plight of the swans. There’s no need to carry them for me,” she adds, even as Hubert opens his mouth. “I have faith in my own ability to make a formidable bookshelf.”

Hubert does, in fact, have the other reports, filed away neatly in sheaths bound with leather, and Edelgard takes them with delight, sweeping out of the room as Hubert stands and bows low. A few beats after the door has clicked shut, he sinks into his chair again and pours another glass of water, grown only more unpleasantly warm in the time since he had served Edelgard her own. Then he picks up the Dagdan missive and its cipher.

What was a free day to Hubert? As his lady had rightly said, they had worked hard for this peace, every day from the moment of their resolution. He had thought warfare would demand the most of him, but governing had taxed him far more than he had ever allowed himself to contemplate. A Fódlan fractured for centuries did not so easily piece back together even under her Majesty’s careful touch.

Rebuilding Arianrhod - or, as it was decided, replacing the scorched wasteland that was left after the war with a new settlement, something more beneficial to the common people - was just one of projects intended to heal those fissures. Faerghus had suffered greatly during the war, thanks to the last stand of that fool Blaiddyd and the beast he’d given safe harbour. Harbour which she’d repaid by setting the torch to Fhirdiad, no less. A nation stripped of their deluded king, with their capital in ashes and their Silver Maiden wiped clean from the map, was hardly enthusiastic about Adrestian feet upon the rubble. First and foremost, they’d needed the flames doused, medical aid, food passed out, those who were trapped to be rescued and those who were dead to be buried. Then they’d needed safe shelter, supply lines restored, public services put back in place. And now, with the physical wounds healed - if not those upon the soul - they needed to rebuild, and flourish.

And that was just Faerghus. There were petty political power struggles to subdue in old Alliance territory, negotiations to undertake with Almyra, the delicate issue of Brigid’s autonomy. Who was Hubert to stroll among the hydrangea when there was so much more that needed to be done? His place was here, in the palace. And if he must sweat his way through his work, then it is just one more drop devoted to the Empire.

—

_Report #5.8, 1188 on the Arianrhod Project, delivered to the Imperial palace with the Gaspard township seal upon the envelope (and no stains)_

_Dear Mister von Vestra,_

_Caspar has been really busy this week so I have taken the liberty of writing today’s report for him - I hope that’s ok! We are now completely clear of rubble from the stage one building site and Hector has told me that a local lady has checked the area for imps in the ruins (they’re kind of a thing in Faerghus, especially around here, don’t worry too much about it) and she’s pretty sure we’re all clear. The first sets of scaffolds went up on Tuesday and we had a little ceremony about it - please see attached expense form. We have also needed to adjust our wage rates slightly, so there is an updated spending report in the envelope too. Caspar says he’ll still fight Mister von Aegir about it if he has to._

_We have also received word from Her Majesty’s secretary about your site visit! We have secured lodgings for you close to Caspar’s. Which are also close to mine. If you need us to get anything for you before you arrive, please just send word and we’ll be happy to help._

_Yours Sincerely_

_Ashe Ubert of Gaspard, Deputy Project Manager_

—

“A site visit,” Hubert says, brow faintly creasing, and Ferdinand claps him on the shoulder with a grin.

“A most welcome opportunity, no? I had volunteered myself but her Majesty insisted that as I had only recently been to Fódlan’s Locket that the baton should be passed to you.”

Hubert bats the hand off, but gently. It is beyond impossible that a man could be so chipper in this oppressive heat while in seven layers of silk and brocade but Ferdinand always has been the sort to infuriatingly defy expectations. “I am only thinking that as Minister of the Imperial Household this seems a little out of my jurisdiction. Both topically, and geographically.”

Ferdinand snorts derisively. “You speak if you have not been an integral part of the project from its foundation. You are a man with fingers in many sections of the Imperial pie, Hubert. Your boundaries have never been the walls of the palace.” He tugs on the end of the neat braid draped over his left shoulder, a quirk Hubert has often observed when Ferdinand is concealing something, and continues: “Anyway, now that the building teams have broken ground, it seems prudent to provide semi-regular oversight, not just as supervision but as visible support. A direct line to the top, as it were.”

Hubert, suspicion growing, fixes Ferdinand with the sort of piercing gaze that has flayed souls bare and spilled secrets like guts onto the floor. As ever, it does absolutely nothing to Ferdinand, who just keeps talking.

“We have already written ahead to Caspar, but if there’s anything you require ahead of your arrival—”

“Yes, contact him or Ashe Ubert. This was Lady Edelgard’s doing, wasn’t it?”

Ferdinand grins. “Is not everything we do the will of the Emperor, Minister?”

“Very amusing. I mean that she has an ulterior motive in sending me away from the Palace.”

Ferdinand sighs with a theatricality deserving of the Mittelfrank. “Oh for the sake of the saints, Hubert. When was the last time you left Adrestia? For years now, you have managed to palm off every government trip that comes your way onto someone else - every trip that isn’t a day visit to Varley to check on Bernadetta, that is. And I have happily gone in your stead! Maybe Edelgard does have some other reason to send you but that does not mean the work is unnecessary. It’s three weeks at the most - If you must, take your paperwork with you and I will have an envoy sent on Fridays to bring the necessaries back to Enbarr.”

Regrettably, Ferdinand has a point. However this does little to quell the anxiety that thuds in Hubert’s chest at the thought of disentangling himself, however briefly, from the network of intelligence reports, daily briefings, passive-aggressive political mind games with the king of Almyra and never ending bureaucracy in which he usually resides.

And, well. Though the weight that Edelgard carries these days is not only of a more agreeable sort but shared across many shoulders, not least his own, the idea of leaving her side is... not without its anxieties. Irrational, perhaps, in the face of the evidence: Dorothea holding her heart, Linhardt monitoring her health, Ferdinand defending her name, just for starters. And yet.

The tension must become apparent in his stance because Ferdinand sighs again and says, “Look, Hubert, if you really must remain in the capital, I can go in your stead. Again. But I really do think—“

“Enough,” Hubert cuts in, waving away whatever impassioned appeal to his sense of national responsibility Ferdinand was planning to try next. “If my lady has commanded it, I will go. However, the envoy will collect on Wednesdays and Fridays.”

Ferdinand smiles and claps Hubert on the shoulder again. “Agreed, though I am taking their travel expenses out of Household’s budget. I dare say you will find Faerghus far more agreeable than Enbarr this time of year anyway. It has more of an aversion to sunlight than you do.”

—

It takes a full week before Hubert can arrange his affairs in anything close to order. His only secure dead letter box in Faerghus is in a nondescript neighbourhood of Fhirdiad, so deliveries will need to be staggered to avoid suspicion, leading to certain projects having their timelines extended. His other duties within the palace are reluctantly reassigned to promising apprentices, with extensive written instructions.

Even so, Hubert finds himself astride Jacobine - recalcitrant as ever, her ears flicking as flies dance around them - with enough confidential documents stashed about his person to start a number of diplomatic incidents. And though Edelgard stands to wave him off with her consort tucked into one side of her and Ferdinand tall and cheerful at the other, he cannot help but linger over his farewell, giving a bow low in the saddle until Edelgard reaches forward with one long-gloved hand and briefly squeezes his fingers.

“I know this was my command, but I cannot say it won’t be odd to be without your counsel, however temporarily,” she says, releasing her grip.

“I am but a ride away if ever you have need of me, your Majesty,” Hubert says, though anxiety gnaws at his own stomach just the same.

“Oh, honestly,” Dorothea sighs. “The two of you are adorable, don’t get me wrong, but it’s only three weeks and both of you survived two wars. Hubie, bring me back some of that herbal schnapps they make up there, eh? And some Gautier cheese for Ferdie.”

“Dorothea! Do not foist that horrible stuff upon me even as a joke.”

“I am not bringing back souvenirs,” Hubert says flatly. “Ferdinand, I expect my first envoy promptly.”

“Of course. Safe travels, my friend.”

“See you later, Hubie.”

“Farewell, Hubert. See you again soon.”

Hubert bows again to the three of them before he nudges Jacobine into reluctant motion.

The ride to Arianrhod is not an easy one. The journey runs almost entirely due north from Enbarr, crossing the edge of the Oghma mountains and through what is now only Arundel in name - its house brought to well-deserved ruin. But by the time Hubert reaches the inn in Remire Village - the whole place repaired and revitalised from that same house’s emptied coffers - the evening sky is starting to blessedly cloud over. Even more thrillingly, the first breeze Hubert has experienced since the spring toys with his hair, and it feels like he can breathe again.

Faerghus itself has a curious landscape. It is forged from the lava that lurks beneath its surface and springs forth at Ailell, leaving behind vast rocky, moss-covered plains quite different from anywhere else on the continent. What it lacks in tall trees it makes up in open sky, vast and relentless: an imposing, almost cruel sort of beauty. By the time Hubert reaches the edges of Gaspard the following day, cresting a hill to see a waterfall carving a wound into the cliffs opposite, he almost wishes he had his Lady’s eye of an artist to capture its exquisite desolation.

Caspar had sent along an address in Gaspard township which turns out to be a large inn, where a woman taller than Hubert gives him one look before asking “You the new Adrestian? You’re across the hall from the other one,” and clapping a key into his hand. 

“Is the other one here right now?” Hubert asks, keeping his expression impassive even as his palm smarts, and the woman shakes her head.

“He’s usually out at the building site until late. We take meals up for the pair of them at a half past nine, they’re usually back a little while before then.”

“I’ll take my meal then as well, if you please,” Hubert says, with a nod, and the woman seems a little surprised at the courtesy, bobbing a distracted curtsey as he strides away. Hubert’s not offended. It’s not an unexpected reaction when one cultivates a certain demeanour.

However much Hubert would like to set his travel-weary bones down in his room and pick up some of the half-finished paperwork he’d brought with him from Enbarr, there’s enough daylight left for him to ride out to the building site today. A mixture of duty and curiosity forces him back out onto Jacobine. It is only right to show his face on site, to speak with Caspar face to face for the first time in months, but what use will Hubert truly be on a construction site, anyway? Nothing but an ornament, a living wax seal indicating the approval of the Emperor. Best to spend time enough to assemble a brief report, send it along with the envoy at the end of the week. Perhaps that will be sufficient, and he can dedicate the rest of his time to the Imperial projects that have been uprooted and delayed, and are now braying at his door demanding resolution.

But for now, he sets back out, towards the great scar upon the land where the Silver Maiden used to sit. Last time he travelled this road the whole hillside had been aflame, the sky black with smoke and the smell of burning flesh in the air. It’s not a particularly fond memory. Now, the rubble sits in piles of organised chaos, a virulent mass of purple flowers have broken through the ashen soil, and towers of scaffolding jut into the cloudy sky.

A girl with hair the colour of dull straw is sat on a pile of crates at an impromptu stop point. When he approaches, she sits up and salutes, waving a book in one hand. “Greetings, sir! I have to write down who you are, and why you’re here, if you please.”

“Hubert von Vestra. I’m here to see the project manager,” Hubert says, and the girl just looks at him quizzically. “Loud, blue hair,” he ventures, making a gesture at the level of his own nose, and she brightens.

“Oh! Mister Caspar! I think he’s over on the eastern edge. They’ve got a problem because of the fish.”

“The fish,” Hubert repeats back to her.

She nods, as if nothing requires further explanation. “I can take you to him and Mister Ashe if you like,” she adds, helpfully.

“Yes, please,” he says, and after scribbling in her book she hops off the pile of crates. Once she lands, she eyes his boots and cloak critically. “You don’t mind if you get muddy, do you, Mister Hubert? We had a rain shower this morning.”

“I assure you these clothes have seen far worse than a bit of mud,” Hubert replies, and she shrugs and sets off stomping down one of the main paths. Hubert follows, dodging the hollows where water lingers as best he can. His muscles ache more than he had expected after the ride. Perhaps he had overdone it a little, coming here this evening. No matter: a short visit is all that is required.

On the ground around Hubert lie pegs with ropes tied to them, demarcating walls yet to be built. Above him is the sound of sawing, of hammer against stone. The creak of rope in pulleys as planks are hauled up the length of the scaffolds and the crash of rubble sent back down them through funnels. On high a pair of men sing a song in rounds, their hammers working in time with their verse. Hubert doesn’t recognise it, but it has the sort of earthy harmonies that would never be heard in Enbarr these days. Songs as old as Fódlan itself.

Hubert hears Caspar before he sees him, which is oddly nostalgic. He is, indeed, talking about fish.

“It’s just fish, dude! Can’t we just like… dig up the fish?”

The girl leading Hubert gestures, and Hubert follows her finger to three figures standing at the edge of a ditch. Caspar is in the middle; to one side of him stands Ashe Ubert, and to the other is a blond man in overalls, leaning his weight on a shovel. All three of them are muddy to the knees.

“It doesn’t work like that,” the blond man is saying, shifting uncomfortably. He turns to Ubert. “You know what I mean, don’t you, Mister Ashe?”

“You don’t need to call me Mister,” Ashe says, in the sort of resigned tone that suggests this is a common request, and then he sighs, placing his hands on his hips and looking down at the pit in front of the three of them. “I know you’re worried, but it could just be left over garbage from the fortress,” he suggests.

“How can we work out whether it’s a shrine or just a bunch of fish?” says Caspar, kicking some gravel idly to one side from under his boot.

“Mister Caspar, Mister Ashe,” the girl shouts across the distance. “There’s a Mister Hubert here to see you.”

All three of the men standing at the ditch wheel around. Hubert watches their faces blanch in real time, which isn’t something Hubert has had a chance to experience for a while. Not since he’d last interrupted a secret meeting of disgruntled ex-nobles who had been sure the Emperor had no knowledge of their sedition.

Caspar runs his hand rapidly backwards through his hair, sticking the front of it awkwardly on end, and then says, “Thanks, Cerys. Hubert! You sure made good time on the trip from Enbarr, huh? I wasn’t expecting you until. Uh. Tomorrow.”

“I made my arrival at Gaspard two hours ago,” Hubert says. “So I decided to make introductions at the site posthaste. I believe you were talking about fish?”

“Uh. Yeah. Ashe can explain,” Caspar says, and then elbows Ashe, who flinches in surprise.

“Oh! Yes. Welcome back to Faerghus, Mister von Vestra—“

“You don’t need to call him that, you’re as bad as the crew,” Caspar hisses, perfectly audibly.

Ashe elbows him back and continues “—Hector here is our master mason. He’s just found something that might be, uh, a holy site. Or, it might just be an old garbage dump from the fortress?” The last is said hopefully, looking at the one who seems to be Hector, who shakes his head.

“All the kitchens were over on the western side, Mister Ashe. This is deep enough to have been here since before the fortress, I reckon. And begging your sirs’ pardon, while the Church don’t get much of a look-in round here anymore there’s still plenty who won’t upset a shrine to Cethleann. Bad luck, isn’t it?”

“And this supposed holy site is composed of… fish,” Hubert says, joining them at the crest of the ditch.

“They used to set the bones into clay, sir, in patterns. On account of it being said that Saint Cethleann was known to enjoy a fish.”

“I see,” says Hubert, without emotion, and sees Ashe wince behind Hector.

Caspar bounces on his heels contemplatively, and then says, “Oh! Hector, what about that lady, uhhh, Bowen, the one who checked for goblins? Would she know stuff about the fish?”

“Imps, not goblins,” Ashe corrects, and Caspar waves a hand in apology.

Hector strokes his chin. “She could have a look, yeah. She was never part of the Church, see, but she knows all sorts about the old holy sites hereabouts. But she’s out at the Llewellyn farm today on account of how their cow shed might be haunted.”

Ashe nods thoughtfully. “Well, if we send Cerys over there she can bring Missus Bowen back here once she’s done.”

“Okay! Okay. Whew. Let’s do that,” Caspar says. “See, Hubert? No problem. Forget about the fish. Hey! Do you wanna see the rest of the site? We can totally show you, like… all the other places. Where normal things are happening. Right, Ashe?”

“Uh, yeah!” Ashe says brightly. “Lots going on.”

“A full tour is not immediately necessary,” Hubert says, feeling his aching legs silently thank him. However from the way Caspar swallows, it’s clear this wasn’t the reassurance Hubert had intended, so he tries another tack: “From what I’ve seen of the site so far, it seems quite an operation of manpower, correct?”

“Uh. Yeah! Yeah. It hasn’t been hard to find people, though. Everyone’s pretty keen around here.”

“There’s not been a lot of work around here since the fortress fell,” Ashe pipes up. “Not in Gaspard, anyway. A lot of people went to Fhirdiad to help with rebuilding there after the war, but not everyone could. It’s a long trip.”

“It’s also my understanding that your expense reports seem to be growing increasingly… expensive.”

Caspar’s chin tilts up a little at this, jaw tensing. “There’s a lot of work to do,” he says, defensively. “You can see for yourself how much we need just to keep the place moving, right? We’ve got every piece of gold accounted for if you need it, just ask Ashe. We can take you to talk to the senior masons, the carpenters, the head blacksmith—”

“I do not doubt it,” Hubert agrees quickly, before Caspar’s volume can increase any further. He turns to Ashe, who straightens nervously when their eyes meet. “I seem to recall you were next in line for the Lordship in Gaspard, while you were at the Academy?” he tries.

Ashe shrugs. “I suppose I was at some point, but that seems like a lifetime ago. A cousin of… of Lonato’s took over at the Castle during the war, after I chose to leave Garreg Mach with the Empire. She’s doing a better job at being the Lord here than I ever would have, anyway.”

Hubert remembers what the Church put Ashe through; he’d not needed much persuasion to join their cause back then. Something about that grief and rage had felt like a reflection of her Majesty’s, and the Church’s downfall had seemed to provide a similar catharsis. It had never just been about Adrestia. “Nevertheless, you volunteered to join Caspar here for the reconstruction project.”

A faint flush of pink rises on Ashe’s cheeks. “Well, sure. It seemed right to come back and help, especially if Casp— if the Empire was coming to rebuild here. Like I said, during the war there wasn’t a lot of work around here. And, well…” He pauses here, looking out over the rubble. “A lot of people died. When the javelins of light fell.”

“There’s a whole bunch of poor, hungry families around here,” Caspar says. “Kids who lost parents, or older people who lost children. Not just here, either - we’ve had workers come from as far as Teutates and Charon. Even some families all the way from Gautier.”

Understandable in the circumstances, of course. “I heard from Ferdinand you were particularly keen to replicate the success of the Enbarr and Derdriu Free Schools here, in time.”

Ashe nods vigorously. “I know it’s a lot of additional expense,” he says, “but I know there is a way we can make it work if we give it a chance.”

“It’s a great idea, and Ferdinand thinks so too,” Caspar chimes in.

The three of them stand for a moment, Caspar and Ashe’s eyes fixed intently on Hubert’s face. Hubert looks from one to the other. The pair of them are vibrating with nervous tension and Hubert genuinely can’t tell if it’s because of him or because of the fish.

“Very well,” he says, eventually. “I suppose I have seen enough for today. Thank you to you both.”

“Wait, what?” Caspar blurts. “Is that it?”

Hubert raises an eyebrow. “Is there a problem?”

“Don’t you wanna ask more questions?” Caspar says, and Ashe elbows him again. “I mean,” he adds. “Not that you need to. But if you did, we would totally have answers.”

Hubert pinches his brow, frustrated. “Caspar, while I am loath to injure my own reputation, I find myself genuinely unable to tell if you are attempting to conceal something from me or if this is some sort of elaborate double bluff. Forgive my bluntness, but why are you acting so strangely?”

Caspar’s brows draw together. “Soooo… you’re not here to fire me?”

Hubert boggles.

“No, Caspar, I am not here to fire you.”

Hubert watches the tension drain out of Caspar. “Whew! Wow. Are you sure?”

“I am quite sure.”

Caspar lets out another long, relieved noise, like water leaking out of a bucket. “Wow! Ok, I was totally convinced you were here to kick me out and put Fleche in charge.”

“Sergeant Major von Bergliez has been assigned to Her Majesty’s security detail in my absence. Is this why you have received my arrival so defensively? Caspar, Lady Edelgard has the utmost confidence in your abilities, otherwise she would have not entrusted this responsibility to you. We do actually read your reports, you know.”

Caspar blinks. “What, really?”

“Of course. Her Majesty was quite concerned as to the plight of the family of swans.”

“Oh man, do not get me started on the swans,” Caspar says darkly. “Those guys had it coming.”

“See, Caspar? I told you that you didn’t need to worry,” says Ashe, as if relief is not pouring from his own slight frame in waves.

“I don’t wanna be rude, Hubert, but, if you’re not here to fire me, why are you here?” Caspar says. “We got the letter from Ferdinand totally out of the blue about it, so we’ve been kinda scratching our heads. I guess we just ended up jumping to the worst case scenario, so, uh. Sorry about that.”

Hubert had forgotten quite how refreshingly direct the man could be. Why was he here, indeed. “Her Majesty has sent me to Arianrhod for support, not scrutiny.”

“So... you’re here to help out?”

“In whatever capacity is feasible,” Hubert replies. “For example, I am not a stonemason.”

Caspar considers this for a moment, and then he shrugs, satisfied, seeming to have shaken off the imagined threat of dismissal as soon as he no longer needed to think about it. “Huh. Okay! Cool. Do you want us to ride back with you to Gaspard? You’ve got the room opposite from uhh—“ curiously, Caspar’s eyes dart back towards Ashe, who is looking determinedly at the scaffolding, before he continues, “—from mine at the inn, so it’s no trouble.”

A curious mid-sentence correction, there. “Do you not have more work to attend to? Fish to investigate?” Hubert says, mildly.

“There’s no more to be done on that part of the site until we can get it looked at, really,” Ashe says. “It’s no trouble at all. It’s getting late now, anyway.” He gestures at the site, which has barely less daylight than it had at noon as far as Hubert can tell.

“Very well,” he says nevertheless, thinking of the stacks on paper on the desk in his room. “Let us away.”

“I’m looking forward to working with you again, Mister von Vestra,” Ashe says, and Hubert relents, waves a hand.

“Five years fighting side by side for Her Majesty’s cause is enough to dispense with formality, don’t you agree, Ashe?”

Another blush on the man’s cheeks. “Oh! Uh. Sorry. I’m never very good at this sort of thing. Of course, Hubert.”

“C’mon, Hubert, let’s go,” Caspar says. “We can take you the pretty way back to Gaspard. The countryside around here is so cool - didja know there’s a spot towards Gideon where water boils out of the ground? It smells super bad, but it looks _awesome_.”

Hubert lets Caspar’s newly reanimated chatter wash over him as they return to the stop point, the straw-haired girl saluting from atop her pile of crates again as they ready their horses. As he swings atop Jacobine, Hubert throws a glance at Ashe and Caspar, the two of them busying themselves with their own tack. Which is when he sees it: Ashe threading fingers between Caspar’s own, squeezing briefly and gently, with a smile of reassurance that Caspar returns with a brief grin.

Interesting.

Hubert looks away from the pair of them, out into the wild, open, ever-clouded expanse of Faerghus, and lets the faintest of smiles dance at the corners of his mouth.

—

_A letter to the Prime Minister of the Adrestian Empire, delivered to the Imperial palace with the seal of the double-headed eagle upon the envelope:_

_Ferdinand,_

_My arrival at the construction site caused somewhat more consternation than I had expected. I assume your myriad duties - e.g., brushing your hair and collecting teapots - have prevented you from properly informing our colleagues here in Faerghus that I am not here to terminate their employment. However, with the matter cleared up, I am now in position to provide whatever support I have to offer from my ill-suited repertoire._

_I am enclosing a number of documents regarding the upcoming summit in Brigid that I did not have time to complete before my departure - please take particular note of the alterations to the meeting schedule. You will also find my penned amendments to your speech at next week’s audience with the Enbarr Chamber of Commerce. The phrasing may seem a little awkward but I assure you it will be to your benefit in the longer term._

_Please assure her Majesty I will return to Enbarr ahead of schedule if my services prove to be surplus to requirements here at any point._

_Yrs,_

_H.v.V_

—

The eerie, almost ever-present daylight of a Faerghus summer has both its advantages and drawbacks for an inveterate insomniac. Hubert is no stranger to the small hours of the morning, as he finds himself now, picking his way through a briefing to the governor of Derdriu. But to see the sky already light and to hear a song thrush heartily singing in the trees outside the inn - when at the last idle glance out the window from his desk had shown him a half-hearted sunset - is rather more jarring than he had anticipated.

Lucky, then, for the heavy wooden shutters to chase away the intrusion when he finally pushes away his work, but less fortunate is the sheer dizzying disorientation he feels when he awakes some hours later to a pitch-dark room. Enbarr smothers, Gaspard baffles. It seems summer is detestable no matter the location. At least the breakfast comes, somewhat surprisingly, with a fresh pot of coffee.

It also comes, midway through, with a knock on the door that shakes it in its frame, revealing Caspar and Ashe on the other side with equal expressions of determined enthusiasm.

“Ah. I had expected to meet you at the site again at your convenience,” Hubert says, a little cagily. He’d hoped to spend a little more time with the briefing he’d worked during the night, before returning to the mud and construction.

“Oh, it’s no trouble, we can ride in with you!” Ashe says, brightly.

“I would hate to interfere with your routine.”

Caspar waves the objection aside. “You’ll be fine. In the mornings we walk around the site and we talk to people about stuff. That usually takes up a couple of hours—”

Hubert raises his eyebrows. “A couple of hours? To talk about ‘stuff’?”

“Okay, when you say it like that it doesn’t sound as good,” Caspar complains. “But that’s why you gotta come with us! You can get to know some of the guys we keep talking about in our reports, and the different work areas, and stuff. Context, or whatever. For when you report back to Edelgard.”

Hubert looks at the stack of work he’d brought with him, and then back at Caspar and Ashe: bright eyed, full of good intention, so eager to show him what they have achieved here. What was the harm?

“Very well,” Hubert says. “Perhaps my presence might help streamline this process. Many hands make light work, as they say.”

Caspar bursts out laughing. “Hubert, when have you ever said that? I’m pretty sure you literally slapped a battle map out of my fingers one time. More like ‘my work, hands off,’ am I right?”

“As I recall, it wasn’t ready for sharing,” Hubert says, stiffly. _As they say_ had been the term. He hadn’t specified he was one of them.

“Well, I think having the three of us together will be a big help,” Ashe says, magnanimously. “And we should get to the site before Missus Bowen arrives to look at the fish. We can start at the gate and work our way inwards.”

—

There’s a lot to take in. The entire place is sprawling, bustling, overwhelming. Masons hack at stone, and blacksmiths sharpen tools all too quickly blunted. Carpenters build scaffolding out of the timber brought by wood cutters. Crates and crates of rope, imported from Derdriu, sit waiting for their myriad uses. And beyond that, it’s easy for Hubert’s household eye to see the wheels that keep the site turning: the cooks tending to huge pots of stew, bakers arriving from Gaspard with loaves upon loaves, young men and women hauling debris away as soon as it accumulates.

As they walk, Hubert begins to realise just why a mere turn around the site can delay Caspar and Ashe for an entire day, why their reports turn into comedy novellas. At every turn, masons pull Caspar aside to jab at plans or to air grievances, or cooks tug at Ashe’s sleeve to ask about deliveries, and as soon as one of them has fended off an inquiry another arrives to take their place. Even Hubert is not spared: on learning of his abilities, Ludmila - a postgraduate mage from the school in Fhirdiad - engages him in a strident conversation regarding the use of arcane crystal dust in mortar for magical defence.

Caspar and Ashe accept each demand with the sort of patience Hubert has never been able to muster in his own dealings with the public. Back in Enbarr, Ferdinand is the charming face of the Empire; Hubert is there to cast enough of a shadow across the proceedings so that all but the most pressing concerns are hastily abandoned. Here in Faerghus, Caspar grins and jokes his way through each encounter, matching the workers word for word in sheer crudeness. Meanwhile, Ashe - his accent slipping ever closer to the locals’, a musical lilt - listens with wide eyes and an earnest face as if each plight was his very own.

For all their nerves yesterday, the two of them seem in their element, and something like satisfaction settles in Hubert’s chest. He hadn’t chosen Caspar for this task arbitrarily. The man’s firm in his decisions, isn’t swayed by petty politics. He’s personable, optimistic. And while Ashe had volunteered himself, Hubert had been quite happy to agree. A Faerghan helping to lead the operation - and not just a Faerghan, but a local, a man of Gaspard - was enough to smooth out a number of disagreements before they had even begun.

He’d intended to start back on the Derdriu briefing as soon as he returned to his quarters that evening, but when he sits down Hubert finds himself fatigued in a way he hasn’t felt in quite some time. The exhaustion is different from his usual, he realises. It’s in his muscles from a day of walking, in his lungs from the open air. More shocking still, he’d only had a chance for coffee at breakfast and lunch, rather than tending to a pot at his desk through the day.

Perhaps tonight, he concedes, he can leave the administrative work until the morning.

Oddly, the last thing that Hubert thinks of before sleep greedily claims him is the memory of two hands briefly intertwined.

—

_A letter to the Prime Minister of the Adrestian Empire, left unsent within a pile of documents in an inn in Gaspard:_

_Ferdinand,_

_~~While I had not intended to pry, I have gained a suspicion through a number of observations that Caspar and Ashe Ubert—~~ _

~~_Had you been aware prior to the beginning of this project that—_ ~~

—

It becomes a familiar routine within a disconcertingly short period of time. An early breakfast, a ride, a meandering course around the site. A journey diverted at every turn by inquiries, concerns and mishaps. And yet somehow, through ingenuity, common sense and sheer force of will - it progresses.

As Hubert is wont to do, he observes. Without motive, without malice, but undeniably observation. Because he cannot help but notice how Ashe will talk of his quarters but ride to the inn to share dinner with Caspar and never quite seem to leave for the night. Or glances shared between the two of them, a quiet but joyful conspiracy. More instances of hands brushing, entwining briefly.

And then, one evening at the inn, a final dusting of sugar upon layers of reckoning: meaning to head to the privy, Hubert had found himself letting his own door fall softly shut again instead, so as not to disturb a stolen kiss in the corridor.

It does not take a master of espionage to gather the evidence. The pair of them are _terrible_ liars.

If they wish to keep their arrangement private - however badly they may be suited to the task - that is their prerogative. Though, Hubert thinks, if they did ever think to include him in this conspiracy, he can be trusted to honour the secret.

—

The straw haired girl is at the gate again today, and this time she waves at all three of them as they dismount, with no waving of the book.

“Hello Mister Caspar, Mister Ashe, Mister Hubert. Mister Jones has sent word with his farm boy that they’re behind on their vegetable delivery rounds, on account of they spent yesterday delivering the goats.”

“Delivering the goats… where…?”

“She means delivering baby goats, Caspar,” Ashe says, to Caspar’s immediate delight. He turns back to the gatekeeper: “Cerys, we kinda need the vegetables, we’re running low and we can’t have workers with no meals. Can we send someone to collect instead? The farm isn’t that far away, and Mister Jones owes us a favour.”

“Ohhhhh, he was the guy we killed the giant wolf for, right? I hadn’t seen one of those in so long!” Caspar grins. “That thing didn’t reckon with us when it started stealing goats. And now the goats have babies! Aw, we saved like, a whole generation.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Mister Ashe. Oh, while I remember - I didn’t see his Lordship when I was making breakfast this morning.”

“Huh, that’s kinda weird,” Caspar says, brows drawing faintly together, but then he shrugs. “He can’t have gone far. Maybe we’ll catch up to him on site. Thanks, Cerys. See you later.”

“You have mentioned this lord a number of times, if I recall correctly,” Hubert says. “Is he causing you trouble?” Hubert is familiar with the lords who still hold sway in this region, though he’d be surprised to hear of any of them trying to interfere with such a large and clearly important Imperial project.

Caspar grins again. “Nah, he’s fine. He can be a little troublesome sometimes but he pulls his weight around the place most of the time. I’m sure he’ll turn up. C’mon, let’s check around now.”

The southern wall is a web of scaffolding and rope, far taller than Hubert usually prefers to contemplate, but there’s no sound of activity from it, no hammering or chanting song. Instead, four masons are standing at the bottom, looking upwards, their arms folded. When they see Caspar and Ashe, they gesture urgently.

“Mister Caspar, we think we’ve found his Lordship,” one of them says, solemnly.

The masons gesture upwards towards the scaffolding; Hubert squints at the framework. He’s half expecting some unpleasant accident, a twisted corpse caught up in rope or broken on planks, but he can’t see anything out of the ordinary.

“I can’t see—” Caspar starts, and then goes, “Oh!” and falls silent. In the pause, Hubert hears something:

A plaintive meow, high above them.

“Your lord,” Hubert says, finally, “is a cat.”

“Uh, yeah,” says Caspar. “We told you that.”

“You did not.”

“Oh. I feel like we did? Maybe I just thought about it.”

“He’s called Lord Pounce,” Ashe says helpfully, “But everyone calls him ‘his Lordship’.”

“Is he stuck?” Caspar says urgently. “Seems like he’s stuck.”

“We think he might be, Mister Caspar,” says one of the masons.

“Can’t we get up there and rescue him?”

“We think he’s underneath one of the walkways in the middle section, Mister Caspar, we haven’t been able to reach.”

There’s another mournful cry from above them, and every pair of eyes turns upwards again.

“I’m gonna climb under there and look for him,” Caspar says determinedly.

“No, Caspar,” Ashe says immediately, followed by, “I’ll do it. I can fit more easily than you.”

“We’re the same height!”

“But you have bigger muscles.”

Caspar briefly looks down at each of his own biceps and then nods solemnly and gestures Ashe towards the scaffold.

Ashe sheds his jacket, handing it to Caspar, and then shimmies up the winding path of ladders and narrow walkways like he’s been navigating the heights his entire life. Hubert’s almost a little envious of how easy it seems, until he hears the way the scaffolding shifts and creaks. He can hear Ashe calling “Lord Pounce? Lord Pounce!” as he approaches each walkway, and the creature’s sad cries in response.

“I think I’m close by,” Ashe calls eventually, once he’s reached somewhere around where the masons were pointing. He pushes his hair out of his face distractedly, and calls “I’m going to pull up some of the planks and climb underneath.”

“You got this, Ashe!” Caspar yells.

“Does this happen frequently?” Hubert asks one of the masons. He shrugs. There’s a sound of splintering from above.

“Can you see him?” Caspar calls, and Ashe sticks his head through the gap he’s just made in the walkway, looking at the framework of wood beneath it. There’s another meow, and then a “how in the world did you get yourself there, you silly thing?”

After a moment, Ashe’s head reemerges from the gap. “I can see him, but I can’t quite reach,” he calls. “Not without climbing under there entirely.”

“Can you do that?”

“Sure. It’s the getting back out again that might be tricky. I can try, though?”

“I believe in you!” Caspar calls, and Ashe gives him a thumbs up. He swings underneath the walkway with startling grace and disappears among the planks and ropes.

“How does such a thing even happen? Cats are supposed to be good at climbing, aren’t they?” Hubert asks Caspar, making a decision to focus his attention closer to the ground. Cats are mostly a mystery to Hubert. He remembers the animals lying around the Imperial palace when he was younger - an affectation of one of Ionius’ consorts, if Hubert remembers correctly - and of course the monastery had been teeming with them. But he’s never really had the time or inclination to interact with them further.

“Well, it’s the same as people,” Caspar says, stretching and putting his hands behind his head. Despite the ever-present Faerghus cloud cover, he looks like he’s caught the sun a little, across his nose. “Sometimes you can climb somewhere and then you can’t climb back down again.”

“This is not a problem I have ever encountered,” Hubert replies, firmly.

“Hey, just so everyone knows,” Ashe calls from above, “I am definitely not going to be able to climb back out holding his Lordship. Also, he has, uh, every single one of his claws in my arm, now. I’m fine though!”

Caspar sighs. “Aw, man. The poor little guy must be scared stiff!”

“Actually I might be a little stuck, too,” Ashe adds.

Hubert digs his thumb and forefinger into the flesh either side of his nose. There is a solution he can see, even if it’s a somewhat frivolous use of resources. That said, it’s probably less of a waste of resources than standing around while Ashe politely bleeds on a scaffold.

“Your warlock, from the other day,” he says. “Can she warp?”

“Ludmila?” says Caspar. “Huh. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her use it.”

“If someone with the appropriate abilities can put themself in range, I don’t anticipate the extra mass of a small animal causing a problem with a teleportation back to the ground.”

Caspar’s face lights up. “Whaaat? So someone warps them both out of there? That’s awesome! Why didn’t you say so before!” He pauses a moment, frowns. “Wait, don’t you know how to do that?”

Hubert fixes him a stare in lieu of replying.

“Pleeeeease, Hubert,” Caspar says. “I know that’s your ‘I don’t want to’ stare, but Ludmila might be anywhere. You’re right here.”

Hubert looks back up at the walkway. It creaks. Lord Pounce meows.

“It wouldn’t take long. And Ashe needs you!” Caspar pleads, and Hubert pinches his nose again.

“Understand that if this happens again, I will not repeat this,” he warns, and braces himself, drawing the sigil with his fingers so that the familiar metallic taste of magic fills his nose and mouth. The spell pulls like a hook in his belly and there’s a brief moment of gut-wrenching suspension before his feet land solidly on the walkway, high above the ground. High, high above the ground.

Everything about this is dreadful. Luckily, Hubert has a certain amount of practice in enduring dreadful things by this point in his life.

“Ashe,” he says, not looking down. “Do you still have a hold of the animal?”

“Oh! Hubert! Yeah, uh, he’s not letting go any time soon, that’s for sure,” Ashe calls, from somewhere under Hubert’s feet. “Did you just—”

There’s no need to prolong this with chit-chat. “Prepare yourself. I’m putting you back on the ground,” Hubert says, and draws the sigil again without waiting any longer. There’s a brief, cut-off yelp, and then Ashe and the cat are gone.

Hubert takes a deep, long, breath. Teleportation demands high resources of its caster at the best of times, and this is the most magic Hubert has used in the better part of a year. Bureaucracy rarely benefits from spellcraft, save the occasional wish to reduce inconvenient paperwork to sludge. Hubert has never been one for reminiscence but the static crackle of power - and fractional yet inexorable muscular atrophy - in his fingertips evokes a stronger emotion within him than he expects.

Then Hubert’s eyes drift briefly to the ground below without his permission and he shakes the feeling away. No time for navel gazing on this infernal structure. He draws the sigil for a third and final time and lets himself be carried away.

When Hubert reappears on the ground, Ashe is still sitting on the dirt in front of Caspar. Lord Pounce is bundled in his arms, its head tucked under Ashe’s own.

“Hubert, you are the best,” Caspar crows, swooping over to give Hubert a smack on the back that knocks half the wind out of him. That was awesome!”

“Thank you so much, Hubert,” Ashe says. He gives Hubert a smile of such earnest authenticity that Hubert feels almost blinded, and then rearranges the cat in his arms so that it’s cradled like an infant. “That was a pretty tight spot for a second, there. Lord Pounce is grateful too, I reckon.”

“Hey, you did great too!” Caspar insists. “Not just anyone who can climb like that. You’re that little guy’s hero.”

“It didn’t feel like that five minutes ago. I’m going to need some iodine.”

“Do you wanna hold him?” Caspar says to Hubert. “He’s a total pushover. Most of the time, anyway.”

Hubert looks down at the cat. Against all probability, the creature is now purring loudly, its front paws comically dangled above its own belly. It’s orange, with white tips to its feet. Almost as if it is wearing socks.

“Perhaps another time,” he says, and does not touch a finger to the creature’s little pink nose.

“Well, we’re gonna buy you dinner tonight, Hubert,” Caspar says. “To say thanks for helping get our cat back.”

“The cat belongs to the both of you?” Hubert inquires mildly. Two faces - one freckled, one caught by the sun - immediately disintegrate into barely disguised panic.

“Well, uh, we found him together, you see,” Ashe says, awkwardly. “So we thought we could… take turns? Sort of?”

“Yeah! Take turns!” says Caspar, quickly. “He lives on the site anyway, we just take turns to feed him. And, uh, some other cats. But his Lordship’s the one that sticks around the most. We’re all just… buddies?”

“You will forgive me if this is an intrusion,” Hubert finds himself saying, after a moment. “But there have been certain things I have noticed between the two of you, that suggest— a familiarity.”

Two faces blanch in tandem, and Caspar groans.

“Ugh, I knew we were gonna mess it up,” he says. “Ashe, I _told you._ ”

“You’re the one who said we should!”

“Well, yeah, but I also said we were probably gonna be really bad at it.”

“Then what was the point of—” 

“I only wish to relieve you of the burden of subterfuge,” Hubert says quickly before the bickering can continue. “Nothing more, nothing less. We need not discuss it further if you prefer not to.”

Ashe sighs. “Sorry, Hubert. And thank you. I guess we thought it might… Make it weird? Cause we’re working with you? I don’t know.”

“I don’t find the notion of the two of you having... romantic inclinations for one another ‘weird’, or otherwise discomforting,” Hubert says, and then adds, "You seem like a fine match."

Both of them say, “Awww,” at the same time, naturally gravitating a little closer to one another. It’s charming.

“What gave it away in the end?” says Ashe. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

Hubert thinks of the kiss directly outside the door of his room, and elects to say, “It was more the culmination of a number of observations.”

“Man, I feel soooo much better now,” Caspar says loudly, and catches Ashe around the shoulders with an arm. “Pretending to not wanna kiss you is pretty hard, you know.”

“Caspar!” Ashe splutters, squirming as much as Lord Pounce as Caspar plants a noisy kiss against his freckled cheek. “We still have to be professional!”

“What? It’s fine. Hubert thinks we’re cute, he said so. Look, he’s smiling.”

Hubert turns to Caspar, eyebrow raised, but all Caspar does is point at Hubert’s face. “Nope, stop trying to hide it, I can tell,” he says proudly. “The corners of your mouth do a thing.”

“A thing,” Hubert says flatly.

“Yup.” Caspar grins and gestures vaguely at Hubert’s face with his outstretched hand. “I got your number, von Vestra.”

Hubert looks away, clearing his throat. “Well, now that the air has been cleared, I believe we still have duties around the site to attend to?”

“Sure do. Day’s only just begun!” Caspar says cheerfully. He detaches himself from Ashe, but only after one more messy kiss on the cheek.

“Fish one day, a cat another. Swans prior to my arrival, I can scarcely wait to see what other members of this apparent animal conspiracy attempt to delay us further,” Hubert says.

“Are you sure you’re not here to fire us?” Ashe says, but he’s smiling.

“Quite sure.”

“Yeah, I believe you now,” Caspar says, breezily. “You’re having too much fun here to fire us.”

“Clearly her Majesty chose the wrong candidate for the head of intelligence if you see through others so easily,” Hubert says mildly. As the three of them continue their walk around the site, Lord Pounce still purring in Ashe’s arms, it occurs to Hubert with a sort of detached curiosity that - despite all the evidence that should point to the contrary - Caspar is not incorrect.

—

It is difficult to tell whether Lord Pounce has truly learned his lesson regarding the scaffolding, or indeed ever learns any lessons at all, but no further feline mishaps occur. Hubert even meets a number of other members of the gentry: Lady Thunder, grey with yellow eyes, and Sir Mewg, elderly and patchwork with an insatiable appetite. The fish found in the ditch turn out to be just fish, though it takes another two days of exploratory digging to make sure. The vegetables arrive just in time to keep the workers fed. Walls get taller. The skeletons of buildings start to rise from the chaos. What was once a fortress, then devastation, inches slowly towards community.

Released from their ill-suited roles, Caspar and Ashe relax into the companionable affection of those with many years between them. Professional, of course, but where they had often stood at a distance they now drift closer, during private moments they reach for one another’s hands more freely. Hubert wonders just how long they had kept their sentiment for one another hidden from the residents of the Imperial Palace. Has it been as long as Edelgard and Dorothea, seeds sown at the Academy and coming to full bloom after victory in the war? 

If Hubert is truly honest, he can only be a little envious of the arrangement. Two forces of nature pointing in the same direction, meandering and diverting as they are inclined but inevitably arriving at the same destination. Who could not be charmed by Caspar’s relentless determination? Or Ashe’s tendency to point to kindness like a compass swings towards the north? 

Hubert has thought rarely of his own romantic needs - to even call them _needs_ seems presumptuous. He is not a target of affection. His priorities lie elsewhere. His duty to his Emperor, his service to his country and to humanity. Nevertheless, the sort of uncomplicated devotion that the two of them hold for one another seems… pleasant. 

He wishes them well.

—

“We’re taking a day off,” Caspar announces one morning, after a particularly vexing start to the week regarding the drainage system. It’s his and Caspar’s usual time to invade Hubert’s breakfast, and Hubert has even learned to set aside a slice of toast for Caspar so that he doesn’t start stealing bacon instead. “It’s time to show you the hot river.”

Hubert sets the trade papers the most recent envoy had brought him from Enbarr aside. “I am going to require more information than that.”

“What? It’s a river, but it’s hot. What else can I tell you?” Caspar says. “You can sit in it if you want. Lots of people do.”

Hubert cannot control the faintest wrinkling of his nose.

“Caspar, you’re not really explaining it very well,” Ashe scolds him, then turns to Hubert. “From here all the way to Ailell, there are places where hot water comes up from below the ground. A lot of it is too hot to touch, but this one is just, well, nice. People bathe there sometimes! And even if you don’t want to get in, it’s still a nice walk to get there. It’ll be a chance for you to see more of Faerghus outside of the towns. Get some fresh air?”

Hubert looks down at the trade papers. “Does the air within the boundaries of the site not qualify as fresh? If we are not needed there, there are other matters I should attend to.”

“Ughhhhh, Hubert, c’mon, it’s one day. Your paperwork isn’t going anywhere until your messenger guy next shows up,” Caspar groans, sprawling across Hubert’s table like the tragic hero of an oil painting. “Pleeeease?”

“I cooked some meat pies to take with us for lunch,” Ashe says, coaxingly, holding up a wax paper packet.

Despite his best protests, Hubert finds himself trailing the pair of them out of Gaspard, threading through wide open grassland full of intensely suspicious sheep out into the countryside beyond Arianrhod. It doesn’t take long for the track to dwindle to a steep, foot-worn path and all signs of civilisation to slide from view, and soon enough - just as Ashe had said - Hubert starts to see plumes of steam rising from the ground in the distance. Exquisite desolation, he’d called the landscape around here when he’d first arrived, and it only remains so as the three of them delve deeper into Faerghus.

The sky is bluer today, and its vast expanse reveals the occasional hawk hovering for prey or a scattering flock of sparrows. Ashe plucks purple flowers from the side of the path and tucks one into his own buttonhole; Caspar picks up a loose branch and swings it back and forth like he’d never quite let go of his axe. The two of them chatter idly, meandering from one topic to another with a logic that is never quite apparent, their free hands twined together. And Hubert—

Hubert finds himself more disquieted the further they journey from Gaspard, with every passing moment without another soul to be seen other than the three of them. With the aching not-silence of the landscape.

It is irrational. In Enbarr he would have given any sum for such solitude from time to time, a chance to focus on the task at hand without inconsequential distractions. He should appreciate it while he has the chance. And yet - without the din of the construction site and its myriad oddities, without his papers to shuffle through. With Edelgard well attended and far away. Separated from his usual concerns, Hubert is left with… whatever remains.

What even is left?

“You’ve been pretty quiet since we set off, Hubert,” Caspar says, dragging Hubert from his unwelcome reverie. “Something up?”

“Just unused to having nothing to occupy my hands, apparently,” Hubert says, wryly. “It is of no concern.”

“We should keep going if we want to get to the river in time for lunch,” says Ashe. “Unless you… want to turn back?”

Briefly Hubert considers it, but shakes his head. He might not understand this feeling, but he’ll be damned if it makes him turn tail. “Let us proceed.”

Passing through the clouds of steam from the hottest pools of water is oddly smothering, a dense fog with a peculiar odour, but as soon as they pass one in particular, Caspar lets out a whoop and takes off running, tugging his shirt over his head.

“Caspar, be careful, look where you’re going,” Ashe calls, but he’s grinning, picking up the pace too.

“Is something the matter?” Hubert says.

“Oh no! We’re just almost there. Caspar always gets impatient when we get this close, he just wants to run right in.”

“You’re planning to swim in the river.”

“Well, it’s too shallow to swim, really. But that means you can sit down on the river bed!” Ashe says.

Hubert stares at him.

“…What did you think we were going to do at the hot river?” Ashe asks, cautiously. He then waves his arms placatingly: “Uh, it’s okay if you don’t want to get in! But we should probably catch up with Caspar before he falls in the wrong water and boils like a frog.”

By the time they make it to the banks of the river, Caspar is sitting on the bank in his smallclothes, the rest of what he’d been wearing a clumsy pile on a rock. When he sees Hubert and Ashe, he grins and gestures.

The river opens wide and shallow in front of them, light catching the steam and reflecting off the water’s surface, a hazy glow. Water tumbles lazily between the rocks, and beyond its banks, the jagged hills open out to yet more hot water vents. Some of the more distant peaks are shrouded at their summits by their own clouds. 

Caspar is already scrambling down the bank into the water. “Whoa! That’s pretty hot. Ashe, hurry up and get in here with me.”

“I’m almost there! You’re so impatient.”

“Says you who has to ride all the way to Fhirdiad to pick up the newest _Hero of Daphnel_ book every time they get released.”

Ashe pulls a face at him. “They take too long to deliver. I don’t want Ingrid to spoil the plot in one of her letters before I even get my hands on it.”

Caspar snorts and wades gingerly out into the middle of the river, and then sinks until the water is almost level with the white lines of scars across his chest. He whoops when Ashe starts to climb down the riverbank towards him.

Hubert stands stiffly on the bank, looking at the discarded piles of clothing. This is hardly an unfamiliar situation. On long marches during the war, whether they were generals or foot soldiers, they’d all have to bathe where and when they could, either with meagre basins or in freezing rivers. But Hubert has now spent years making use of the private suites in the Imperial palace - water heated by clever sigils, soft towels on hand. Efficient and perfunctory before the next meeting. He looks back at the two in the river, wading closer to one another, matching smiles on their heat-flushed faces, and feels— misplaced.

“C’mon, Hubert,” Caspar calls. “You gotta get in. When’s the next time you’re gonna see a hot river, huh?”

“I can see it perfectly well from here,” Hubert says.

“Yeah, but you can see it better when you’re in it.”

“You can just dip your feet in, if you want,” Ashe says, pointing at a nearby rock that overhangs the water. “It’s nice that way too.”

The water continues to steam and burble and glitter in the sun. Caspar and Ashe sit side by side amongst the haze, watching him with bright eyes.

“I suppose it couldn’t do any harm,” he says, still awkward, but Caspar cheers as Hubert tugs off a boot.

With his breeches cuffed to the knee and boots and socks neatly arranged beside him, he can sink one foot and then the other into the water. The water is far hotter than he’d expected, even with Caspar’s warning, and the contrast to the breeze, the stone beneath him is truly odd. Odder still is the feeling, suddenly, that there is nothing else to do. With that, the same anxiety that had encroached on his thoughts along the walking path returns with vigour.

How long has it been, he thinks, kicking his legs in the water, since he’s had nothing to occupy his hands, his mind? There have been moments of solitude, of course, or time spent lying in wait with nothing but the ache of his muscles to distract him, but that had been in the line of his duty. A goal in mind, however banal or bloody. There, his attention had been focused to a sharp point. Here, Hubert’s thoughts dissipate like the steam from the river, scatter like sparrows into the open sky. Swoop into places he would rather not explore.

“You’ve gone quiet again, Hubert,” comes Caspar’s voice, much closer than before; he and Ashe have waded over to him, sitting in the water either side of his feet.

“I apologise,” Hubert says. “I am finding myself a little… disconcerted.”

Hubert expects Caspar to be amused, but instead he just nods thoughtfully.

“It’s like that, here. I felt the same when I first came to Faerghus, too,” Caspar says, sinking a little lower into the river. “Like, Bergliez is big? And has plenty of fields and stuff. But there’s always something going on. People around. Here, it’s just the sky, and the wind, but there’s so _much_ of it.”

“It’s alright, Caspar, you can call it boring. I won’t mind,” Ashe says, flicking water off his fingers at Caspar playfully, but Caspar shakes his head, still serious. 

“Nah, it’s not boring. It’s beautiful! But it’s like… the super-opposite of boring.”

“Overwhelming,” Hubert says.

“Not that either,” Caspar says, swishing his hands back and forth gently in the water. The bottom half of his arms are noticeably more tanned than the top. “Okay, maybe at first it was. But now I kinda like it. During the war we were always doing stuff, right? It was always march march march, fight fight fight, train train train.”

“You enjoy fighting and training,” Hubert points out.

“Well, yeah. I don’t mind marching either really, it’s just like another kind of training. But what I mean is, you were always moving, cause you had to. Always doing. And the same with Arianrhod. Even when we reckon it’s gonna be an easy day, something weird usually happens, so there’s always something to think about. But out here, we don’t have to do anything but walk, and look at stuff. And everything that happens around us is… nothing to do with us, really. Bigger than us.”

Hubert looks out across the valley from his perch. The wind passes through the tall grass and the land ripples and sighs with its movement. Above them, steady wind pushes clouds past the endless sun so that the landscape is thrown from bright sunlight into shade again and again. 

“It is… somewhat humbling,” Hubert concedes. 

“A lot of folklore and fairytales are about those kind of things. The stuff that we can't control,” Ashe says, quietly. Freckles dust his shoulders and arms just as generously as his face. “Imps living in abandoned buildings, or giants moving mountains and throwing boulders around, or— ghosts that can’t find rest. I used to find some of those things scary, but... I don’t believe in them so much, these days.” Something travels quickly over his face, but resolves into composure.

“I used to fear such things, too,” says Hubert, registering the surprise on both Caspar and Ashe’s faces in response. He shrugs. “Divine punishment. Grudges held by the dead.”

“What changed your mind?” Ashe asks.

“A lot of things, I suppose,” Hubert finds himself saying. He can’t remember the last time he’d been this candid - there must be something in the air around here. “Learning magic was one. The requirement of faith or reason to summon fire to one’s fingers or to heal the injured somewhat skews your perspective of belief. Another was my commitment to Her Majesty and her cause, and what was necessary to achieve it. It changed what I feared from the _unknown_ to the _blindly accepted_. And nowadays, I prefer to concern myself with the mundane actions that shape our future in concrete ways.”

Hubert looks upwards, and huffs a wry laugh. “Until here I am, spooked by the sky, in ways that I cannot articulate.”

“I never was any good at magic stuff,” says Caspar, after a moment. “So I don’t know about all that. But I think it’s okay to still get weirded out by things, or sad about ‘em, even if you know they can’t hurt you.”

“Caspar’s right. Once you can't explain something away with fairy stories, or do anything about it with magic, or think it into making sense, I guess you just have to let yourself feel it,” Ashe says. 

The three of them sit together for a moment, quiet, and Hubert fancies he can almost hear the whisper of countless words not said, memories relived privately again and again, wounds healed and not healed. The wind tugs Hubert’s hair away from his face, and he makes to brush it forward again with a gloved hand. It immediately escapes his grasp.

He startles at a touch upon his other hand; though Caspar is still looking out across the valley, he has reached upwards, catching the top of Hubert’s right hand in a warm, damp grip through the cotton. He turns to look at Ashe without thinking, anxiety gripping his chest, but instead Ashe is reaching out too, a faint and wistful smile playing on his face.

Not daring to let his words out into the wind, Hubert turns his left hand upwards to let Caspar’s fall more comfortably into his grip, and lets Ashe take a hold of his right. Lets himself feel the weight of their palms, the heat of their fingers through his gloves. Lets the wind blow his hair away from his face.

“Perhaps we can talk of other things,” he suggests, eventually. “This seems like a fine time to strategize our next steps regarding—”

“Nuh uh, Hubert. No work talk in the hot river,” Caspar says, squeezing his hand.

Hubert looks back out to the plumes of steam rising in the valley, briefly tightens his grip on both Caspar and Ashe’s hands in response. Then he sighs. “Very well. But I may need to remove myself soon. I have never experienced the sensation of having my toes boiled before. I don’t find I care for it.”

“Stay for as long as you need,” says Ashe, and runs a thumb along the side of Hubert’s damp glove.

—

_Report #6.0, 1188 on the Arianrhod Project, delivered to the Imperial palace with the double-headed eagle seal upon the envelope (and one butter stain)_

_Your Majesty,_

_A full record of progress on construction over the duration of the last three weeks at Arianrhod can be found enclosed with this letter, along with the usual spending report. As a brief summary for your convenience: most of the major buildings within the compound have now commenced construction, though their completion dates will be staggered so as to manage resources and to help prioritise the work of the masons. We have encountered a number of minor delays, though nothing that should cause major problems to the schedule. I would, however, suggest writing directly to General von Bergliez for his account regarding the return of the family of swans. I feel I cannot give it justice with my own paltry vocabulary._

_As a brief summary of my time in Faerghus, if I might briefly turn to the personal: by the very nature of the work, the people, the environment, I have frequently found myself outside of my usual boundaries of comfort. As someone who had never thought himself inclined to complacency - and, indeed, actively works against many agents of such a vice - the experience has been eye-opening, to say the least. That aside, von Bergliez and Ubert continue to prove themselves worthy of the roles they have assumed, and I can only find myself humbled by the experience._

_I think it wise to propose a rolling schedule of field visits over the course of the rest of the construction programme, which I would be happy to undertake personally should there be no conflict of commitments._

_Having completed my immediate obligations, ~~I anticipate my return to Enbarr~~_ —

—

It finally happens like this: the evening before Hubert plans to return to Enbarr, the three of them share a meal in Hubert’s room, as they often do. Caspar and Ashe tangle together in soft, easy companionship, and they often do, and Hubert feels warm in their reflected light, as he finds he often does these days. 

And Caspar stands, stretches, grins a “Well, g’night!” and presses a kiss to Ashe’s lips. And he then reaches across, and does the same to Hubert, as if the same has occurred a dozen times before.

And then he walks out the door.

“Ah,” says Hubert, and Ashe starts laughing.

“He really just did that, huh?”

“Apparently so,” says Hubert, and Ashe is still smiling.

“He talked that up so much, you know. How he was going to kiss you one day, what a great moment it would be. And I think he just forgot he hadn’t kissed you goodnight before now.”

Hubert presses his fingers to his mouth, and Ashe’s giggling subsides.

“You had talked about it?” Hubert asks.

“Is… that ok?” Ashe asks, carefully.

“I— well,” Hubert manages, and then draws in a deep breath. Then he says: “This sort of thing is hardly my forte. But I find myself— less spooked by the sky when I am with the pair of you. As it were.”

Ashe smiles, as bold and unguarded as the rest of him. “Does that mean I can kiss you, too?” he asks, and Hubert only nods for a moment before Ashe moves to him, reaches up. He curls a hand around the back of Hubert’s neck, and presses their mouths together far more decisively.

They’re still kissing when there’s a thumping on Hubert’s door, and Caspar’s voice calls pleadingly through the wood “Hey, wait! I want a re-do. Can I get a redo?”

And Hubert cannot help but laugh, and wonder how else this place can continue to surprise him.

—

— _I am extending my current stay for another week. Please assure Dorothea I will return with her schnapps in due course, and warn Ferdinand that I shall also return with cheese. I trust that your counsel is well kept by your lady consort and the Prime Minister._

_I have the honour to be Your Majesty's humble and obedient servant,_

_Hubert von Vestra_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank to SO SO much to Ludo for all the cheerleading and support while I was writing this and for having so much patience for all the times I wrote something and then immediately changed my mind and completely rewrote it despite saying I was done. Please go and look at Ludo's [absolutely darling comic](https://twitter.com/pr0fiterole/status/1301254071177883649?s=21) made as an accompaniment to this! 
> 
> I've based the countryside of Faerghus heavily on the landscape in Iceland, along with its long summer days. 
> 
> You can find me on twitter at @hausofthestars and Ludo at @Pr0fiterole!


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